Sword Pen

This is a vivid and perceptive insight into the horrors of war as experienced by British soldiers of the Royal Artillery in the Desert War in 1941-2. The author, who fought in the campaign, brings to life the true nature of the fighting as British gunners…

1813 was a critical year in the world war that ended with the downfall of Napoleon. In a series of major battles, the converging armies of the Sixth Coalition drove the French forces back. This was the year in which the balance of power tipped decisively against…

John Joseph Steward fought in the Great War, from the Battle of the Somme to the final offensives of 1918, and he was an acute, unflinching observer of the conflict he took part in - of life and death on the Western Front. He was a writer, too. He recorded his…

David James was in Motor Gunboats (with Robert Hichens of Gunboat Command.) Captured in February 1943 after abandoning ship as a result of a fierce engagement with three German armed trawlers in the North Sea he was imprisoned in Dulag Marlag. His first…

This biography of John Jervis, who became Admiral Lord Vincent, makes compelling reading. It throws an oblique light on Nelson's personality. St Vincent, who was born twenty-three years before Nelson, and survived for eighteen years after Trafalgar,…

This is a descriptive account of what it was like to serve as an Infantry Officer with the Desert Army in the Western Desert and Sicily between 1942 and 1943. The author is Major H.P. Samwell, MC, who was unfortunately killed on 13 January 1945, whilst serving…

In July 1942, German and Italian forces seemed to be at the point of sweeping away British resistance in the Middle East and overrunning Egypt. But, Rommel's victorious army was checked on the Alamein line in what became the first battle of Alamein. Two months…

Donald Barnard joined the RAF as a bomber pilot. Shot down over France, he evaded capture and was sent to Asia in 1945. Disapproving of the delay in recovering prisoners of war after their horrific treatment by the Japanese, he stole a Dakota and rescued 25 POWs…

Peter Liddle was a pioneer in the recording of memories of personal experience in the First World War and in the social background of those who lived through those years. Later he moved into the recording of men and women for whom the Second World War was the…

For the first time, leading Second World War authors from around the world have collaborated on a definitive anthology of the greatest snipers of the war. Each author supplies full details of their chosen sniper, including illustrations that have never been…

An original and very accessible memoir of a soldier fighting the Japanese in World War II written by a veteran. This is an almost forgotten campaign and this account gives the reader an incredible insight into what life was like on the front line in Burma.